An autobiography usually recounts the life of a person who has achieved wide acclaim in one field. But this extraordinary book describes the life of someone who has achieved international acclaim in three fields!

Ervin Laszlo was a child prodigy on the piano and grew up to become an internationally celebrated virtuoso. By the time he reached his 40s, however, he had become a famous scientist and philosopher, and had written a dozen books and more than a hundred articles. He also taught at major universities in Europe, the U.S., and the Far East. Shortly thereafter, he gained world renown as a global visionary, heading research programs at the United Nations and founding an international think tank (the Club of Budapest).

But this book is not an autobiography in the traditional sense. In Laszlo’s own words: “I don’t like talking about myself, about what makes me tick and why. Writing about all the things that have happened to me is different. This is storytelling—the telling of a real, lived story: my story, as it unfolded over the years.”

Join the author on his remarkable journey from his days as an internationally acclaimed concert pianist... to his profoundly personal quest to effect positive global transformation!

Ervin Laszlo, holder of the highest degree of the Sorbonne (the State Doctorate), is the recipient of four honorary Ph.D.’s and numerous awards and distinctions, including the 2001 Goi Peace Award (the Japanese Peace Prize) and the 2005 Assisi Mandir of Peace Prize. He is the author or editor of more than 80 books and has twice been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. A former professor of philosophy, systems theory, and futures studies in the U.S., Europe, and the Far East, Laszlo is founder and president of an international think tank (the Club of Budapest), as well as the General Evolution Research Group. He is a member of the International Academy of Science, the World Academy of Arts and Science, the International Academy of Philosophy of Science, and the Hungarian Academy of Science.

Excerpt:

Chapter One

“Yippee!”

My yell would have made Winnetou — the brave Apache chief I had much admired in Karl May’s popular Wild West stories — proud. My outburst on that particular day escaped full force from my throat when, walking home from school, I spotted what I was looking for. It was at the corner of Aréna-út (the wide street that fronts the Városliget, the Budapest City Park) and a smaller street with shops — and with posters. There it was, across the street on a large cylindrical column intended to display bills for upcoming events. I was glad that I had taken this route, for normally I would walk along the Fasor, a quiet avenue lined with a double row of chestnut trees on each side... but with no posters.

Running across the street for a closer look, I unfortunately didn’t notice that one of the stones in the cobblestone pavement was displaced. My foot got caught in the hole and I fell, leaving my knee skinned and badly bruised, with blood running down to my sock. But never mind, my discovery was worth it.

The reason for my exuberance were the two posters right in the middle of the wide column, one under the other. The one on top was large and horizontal, the usual format for concerts in Budapest: it announced that the Budapest Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Miklos Lukács, would perform the following day. The piano soloist, the poster proclaimed in fat red letters, would be Ervin Laszlo — me. I had been hunting for these posters on the streets of Budapest over the course of the past week, ever since they had first been put up, but until now hadn’t found one so close to home — and also close to school, where both my parents and my friends would see it.

“My” poster was just above another that I had also hunted down, because I enjoyed seeing it, although I couldn’t quite say why. It advertised a play at a downtown theater, a comedy titled A Meztelen Lány (“The Naked Girl”). I didn’t know anything about that play, but somehow it was nice to see the poster and say the title aloud. The theater poster, in the usual smaller format, was just below mine; and this seemed to me to be an excellent arrangement.

The date was March 1942, and I was nine years old. Contrary to what my glee upon seeing the juxtaposition of the two posters might suggest, I was a piano prodigy, not a sex prodigy. I had no interest in girls. If anything, I considered them a nuisance. I didn’t waste any time thinking about them, but seeing “The Naked Girl” under my name intrigued me.

I paid dearly for my careless dash across the street, because the next day I had to walk onstage with a big bandage around my knee. (Boys in those days wore knee pants even in the evening and on dressy occasions. Wearing long pants would have made me look like an undersized grown-up.)

The concert took place in the festive Vigadó, the famous ballroom and concert hall on the shores of the Danube. My appearance was greeted with gasps by the audience members — not because of the bandage around my knee, but because there had been no mention in the announcement that the soloist would be so young. I had been playing private or semi-private concerts in literary and artistic clubs and salons in the city for the past two years, but this was my formal debut on a major stage, and I had been looking forward to it for months.

Still, part of my delight on that special day in my young life was due to something entirely different. It was the prospect of getting a particular kind of candy that I especially liked but seldom received: candied tropical fruits, packed in a large and colorful metal box. One of those boxes, I figured, would last me for several weeks, and then there would be another concert and perhaps another box. At my earlier appearances, I had been receiving more ordinary candies of many kinds, and even some laurel wreaths with colorful ribbons imprinted with my name and the date of the performance, but those rewards were of much less interest.

I knew the person who was most likely to bring me the desired candy, and it worried me that I didn’t see her backstage before the concert. (This lady was to play a major role in my life as a musician, as I shall recount later.)

Having duly listened to all kinds of last-minute injunctions about looking at the conductor and waiting for his cue before starting — and above all, keeping still while the orchestra played without a piano solo part — I at last walked onstage, bowed to acknowledge the first hesitant and then surprisingly prolonged and happy applause, and embarked on my piece, Mozart’s Concerto in A Major. All went well until the middle of the first movement, the part where the opening theme returns and then continues in a different key. Just as I launched into the theme for the second time, a movement off to the right in the audience caught the corner of my eye. A lady was entering the first row. Was she the awaited candied-fruit conveyor?

Another look confirmed that she was. My heart gave a thump and my spirits soared considerably. Unfortunately, her appearance also distracted me. I forgot that we were not playing the main theme for the first but for the second time, so instead of continuing in the tonic key, I continued with the dominant. I went my way and the orchestra went its way, and that produced a discordant, disturbing sound. The conductor must have thought that I had lost my way, so he picked up the bulky orchestral score and leaned over to show it to me. I ignored him — I was not great at reading even a simple piano score, much less the complex score of a whole orchestra. In any case, I didn’t need to see it; I knew what was wrong and how to put it right. I switched immediately to the correct tonality, and we continued without a hitch.

Nobody noticed anything, other than that the conductor had picked up the score and then quickly put it back again. I gulped — that was a close call. I decided to “live myself back into the music,” as Mother would say, and stay there.

As always, living myself into the music made everything else disappear—the conductor, the orchestra, even the public. There was only the music, flowing, pulsing, and taking me into the land of Mozart — a place that was both tender and friendly, and loving yet rigorous.

There was a standing ovation when I finished the concerto, and many hugs and handshakes — first onstage with the conductor and first-row players, and then with friends and crowds of well-wishers backstage. The lady from the front row showed up, and sure enough, she had a large metal box in her hands. She hugged me and handed it over. I could hardly wait for her and everyone else to leave so I could open it. It was the candy I had hoped for!

***

“Living myself into the music” was how I learned to play piano. My first piano teacher was my mother. She had started me out when I was four, but I didn’t take well to instruction; she later told me that I insisted that I knew better about everything. At five I was more willing to listen, and soon acquired quite a repertoire. I never looked at the score; indeed, I didn’t learn how to read a score until years later — and even then, not very readily. I just listened to Mother play a piece, and then I would play it myself. This wasn’t learning the score or mimicking my mother. Rather, it was absorbing the music through my whole being.

Once I began to play a piece by a great composer, I would spontaneously continue it — to me it seemed the music couldn’t have been otherwise than the way it was. I was not playing the score, not touching keys in the order prescribed by the composer. I was in another world, where everything had to be the way it was, and where everything made sense. This was what (in Hungarian) Mother and I called bele élni magamat a zenébe — “living myself into the music.”

One day my father showed up with a new phonograph, featuring a light pickup arm and a fine chrome needle. It didn’t scratch as much as the one we’d had before, and I would spend hours listening to records. Although we had a fairly large collection, my parents knew that for me, getting a new record was always a great joy. On every Christmas and birthday, and even on my name day (the day in which the saint I was named after is celebrated in church), my collection would grow, sometimes by leaps and bounds.

On my tenth birthday, Father came home with Wilhelm Backhaus’s recording of Beethoven’s famous sonata known as the Appassionata. (This is the Piano Sonata no. 23 in F Minor, considered one of Beethoven’s most tempestuous works for the piano. It was composed the year Beethoven came to grips with his deafness and reflects the turbulent emotions he experienced during this period.) I wanted very much to play it, but Mother said it wasn’t appropriate for me; rather, it was a piece for grown-ups. I didn’t agree with her at all. I told her that now that I’d turned ten, I had two numbers to my age. I would have two numbers until I passed ninety-nine. All the great pianists had two numbers, I was almost sure. Therefore, I could play whatever they were playing. I was very impressed with my venerable age.

My mother didn’t comment on my reasoning, but in the end, she agreed to teach me the Appassionata. I learned the majestic first movement in a few days, and it carried me into a land full of unknown wonders, far beyond where the other pieces had “taken” me. I loved to play the piece — and I played and played it. Mother listened, and decided to get a second opinion.

She took me to Professor Arnold Székely, a renowned professor at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, who, in his late seventies, was in retirement but was always ready to offer an opinion. He agreed to listen to me. The professor lived on the upper floor of a stately old building overlooking the Danube on the Pest side of the city.

We climbed the marble staircase and were greeted by the professor’s housekeeper, an elderly woman wearing a crisp white apron. She said that the professor was expecting us and told us to go right in. The room we entered was large and sunny, with a breathtaking view of the historic buildings across the river, on the Buda side of the city. There was no time to take it all in, though, for the professor got right to the point.

“Welcome. And what will you be playing?”

Mother answered for me, as I felt a bit embarrassed.

“We have worked on several Mozart sonatas, and even Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto — all pieces with beautiful, simple melodies,” she said.
“Ervin likes them all, but then he heard Wilhelm Backhaus play the Appassionata on his new recording, and he fell in love with it. I told him that it’s not for him — he must grow up to really understand it — but he doesn’t want to listen. He learned the first movement by heart and is practicing it every day, just as soon as he sits down at the piano.”

Professor Székely raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything — he just pointed to his pianos. He had two beautiful grands side by side. Just looking at them was like gazing into the most amazing toy store I’d ever seen. I briefly tried both and then chose the Blüthner, which had a wonderful, mellow sound. Playing it didn’t feel like playing an instrument; it felt like playing with a friend. I began the first movement, and soon forgot about Professor Székely, Mother, and everything else around me. I was in the wonder world of the Appassionata.

When I finished, Mother looked inquiringly at Székely. The venerable professor stood, threw up his hands, and declared: “Egyszerüen zseni!” (“Simply genius!”). My mother nodded. Nothing more was said, and we went home.

The saying stuck. It stuck not just with Mother and me, but also became a family legend. Whenever I would contemplate undertaking something that on first sight seemed implausible — if not downright impossible — I would say (but only to myself): Perhaps it’s simply genius! And then I would try.